Plants experience various abiotic stresses of low or elevated temperature, drought and heavy metals. Chickpea (CicerarietinumL.) is one of the important crop belongs to the family Leguminosae and it is the second most important grain legume plant in the world after common bean. Chickpea has evolved as a spring crop in warmer climate of West Asia. Therefore, it is prone to chilling injury as in north India; chickpea is cultivated in winter season. To protect the plant from chilling injury, preconditioning the plants with mild drought stress might triggers the signalling pathways that will prepare the plants to combat lethal cold stress. This is determined by monitoring the various cell responses at different phases. Therefore antioxidative enzyme activity of the SOD, APX, GPOX, LOX, CAT enzymes was done. In our study, both the varieties, PDG3 and GPF2 showed equalvariation towards SOD, CAT, GPOX, and APX activity. Enhanced SOD, CAT & GPOX activity in both the varieties showed increased tolerance towards cold stress. Less LOX activity showed preconditioning decreased membrane damage in preconditioned seedlings. Thus, preconditioning with mild drought stress has enhanced tolerance capacity of the plant during the cold stress.